


Some Kind Of Invincible

by psycho_phreak



Category: Saints Row
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Happy enough, Implied/Referenced Suicide, POV Multiple, Suicidal Thoughts, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-02-23 09:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23776054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psycho_phreak/pseuds/psycho_phreak
Summary: The Boss was supposed to be some kind of invincible. She was supposed to be fearless and indestructible.She was supposed to be in charge. She was not meant to let what was happening right now happen.The Boss spirals after the premiere of Gangstas In Space.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	Some Kind Of Invincible

**Author's Note:**

> For a content warning see the end notes

You stumble home in heels you’re too drunk to walk in, in a dress that cost more than your first car.

_It was the premiere tonight. Gangstas in Space. You loved the red carpet, the fans, the clicking cameras._

_You did not love signing pictures of your dead friend’s face over and over again._

You stand outside the tower, staring up at the penthouse. If you focus you can hear the beat of music, the flash of lights. Pierce always threw the best parties, always went over the top. If it was any other night you would be up there with them. You would have to be peeled off a stripper pole, you would spill expensive alcohol on your expensive dress, you would insist that Pierce fill the pool with vodka.

Tonight you can’t fucking stand it.

_The movie was shit. It was fun and flashy and overproduced and no doubt it would do very well overseas, but you can’t quite enjoy it._

_It could be the simplistic plot or the 2D characters. It could be seeing Josh Birk’s awful acting, or maybe your own worse acting._

_What really ruins that movie for you is seeing Johnny’s face on that screen again._

Shaundi reached for your hand and the two of you white knuckled your way through it.

You blink and you’re at Shaundi’s ex’s apartment. Your feet took you there while you weren’t paying attention.

You almost wish the city was still dangerous enough for you to have to focus.

You march up the stairs and bang on the door. He takes a minute to answer, and he’s in his underwear. You guess it’s late, but time stopped meaning anything to you a little while ago.

“I want this apartment,” you say. Your voice is hoarser than it should be. Have you been crying? You don’t remember.

“I… it’s mine,” he says.

You sigh. “I’ll give you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to leave right now.”

The poor man visibly gulps. You wonder if you scare him enough to get this done, wonder if you’ll kill him if you don’t.

You don’t want to. Which is new. But you don’t want to do anything right now except collapse somewhere familiar.

“Three hundred thousand,” you say. “But I want it now.”

He closes his eyes, nods. “I just… have some things,” he says.

“I have to go to the ATM anyway.” You’re too tired for this. “If you’re packed by the time I come back you can have another fifty thousand.”

He nods and you wander off again, down the stairs. You lost your shoes at some point. Your feet are bleeding.

You should really be paying attention.

The trip to the ATM is a blur and you have no idea how much you give the guy. He seems happy and then he’s gone and you don’t care anymore.

You collapse on the couch and stare up at the ceiling.

_You could have held it together. You could have struggled but coped and left this for later._

_But then the credits rolled._

_“In memory of Johnny Gat, the baddest motherfucker who ever lived.”_

_You gripped Shaundi’s hand hard enough for her to gasp in pain and yank it back. You whispered an apology but couldn’t unclench, your nails gouged holes into your palms._

_For the first time you realised he was really dead._

_He was never coming back._

\---

The Boss had a belief about mourning.

It was that there was no point mourning your friends until after you had avenged them, because if you were unsuccessful at least you would see them again very soon.

Pierce had seen this belief in action after what had happened in Stilwater. With Dane Vogel dead, the Saints officially owned the city. They went home. The Boss declared a party in Purgatory.

And then nobody saw her for three weeks.

Gat had dragged her out of whatever pit she was in after one of Shaundi’s exes said he had seen her smashing monster trucks down by the factories. Pierce only saw her for a moment, Johnny’s jacket covering her, pupils blown wide, covered in blood, and giggling maniacally.

He had no idea how Gat got her back.

And now he desperately needed to know.

He thought he could avert this. He thought that if he talked to her after the plane crash, if he could get her to face her grief head on then it might not come to this. And then she had let Killbane go and didn’t kill Cyrus Temple on the spot he thought it had worked.

She had kept going and fighting and fucking and never fell into the terrifying hole she had after Stilwater. She finished up that shitty movie, kept herself busy until the premiere.

The thing about the Boss was that she was like a shark. She had to keep moving because if she stopped, everything she was running from would catch up with her and she would never start again. Apparently, the premiere was the last thing to do on her list.

And now she’s gone.

It should be easy to find her. Between Kinzie’s hacker skills, the Boss’s fame, and the fact that Steelport was their bitch now, this should have been easy. But nothing the Boss ever did was that simple.

It took ten entire days for Kinzie to come up with a location, and even then it was because the Boss was obviously fucked up. She sent Pierce a video of her stumbling through the airport and shooting a security guard in the face.

 **I think she’s stealing a plane :/** read the follow up text.

Pierce arrived at the airport just before the police. When he heard the whine of their sirens in the distance he groaned and made a call.

“Mayor Reynolds,” he said. “I need a favour.”

“I don’t remember offering you one.”

“It’s for the Boss. She’s in trouble.”

Pierce could hear the Mayor sigh. “What do you need?”

“I need the police to forget about a stolen airplane and I need access to the air traffic control tower.”

“Consider it done. Don’t call me again.”

Pierce hung up and watched as all but one of the police cars drove off. One police officer stepped out and very conspicuously took out his gun and laid it on the ground in front of him before approaching Pierce.

“The Mayor says you need assistance?” he said, uncertainty pooling in voice. This kid didn’t even look old enough to drink.

Pierce had his doubts but in ten minutes he was in the tower, watching someone flick through the channels to find the Boss.

“Torch hold position cancel takeoff, I repeat, cancel takeoff due to unauthorised activity on the runway,” the radio controller rattled off, both warning other pilots and searching for the Boss.

For the first time there was a long pause. And then – “Fuck off.”

“That’s her,” Pierce said. “Can I talk to her?”

He was shown what button to press and then – “Boss? Are you still there?”

“Pierce? What the fuck are you doing?”

“Boss we need you to come home.”

She didn’t reply.

“Please.”

Still no response.

“What’s your plan anyway? Where you gonna go?”

Another moment of silence and just as Pierce was about to start talking again, she answered.

“I’m gonna see how Johnny did it,” she said all in a rush.

“The fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“There was no body Pierce. Johnny wouldn’t die in a plane crash. That’s not him. We would have found a body by now, it would have washed up or gotten caught in a fishing net or something.”

Pierce took a deep steadying breath. “You’re gonna crash that plane.”

“Yep!”

“Are you high?”

“Yes Pierce,” she said, exasperation coming through the radio. “I’m in a plane.”

And she burst out laughing.

“But also yeah I am off my tits,” she conceded.

Pierce had been concerned. Now, he was panicked.

“Boss if Johnny’s really alive out there somewhere,” he said. “Wouldn’t he want you to be alive and safe?”

“If Johnny’s really alive how come he hasn’t come home yet?”

Pierce squeezed his eyes shut. “Can you decide if he’s alive or dead so I can make you land that motherfucking plane?”

“Honestly I would love to,” she said. “But I have no idea how to land a plane.”

“How you fly a plane if you can’t land?”

“Oh I can’t do that either. I’m still trying to figure out how. I’m still on the runway going up and down. Hey, can you see me?”

Pierce put his head down on the table and groaned.

\---

You step out of that plane feeling like you’re floating. Finally, it was all out there and someone knew. Now they can beat it out of you or lock you away. If you’re really lucky, maybe someone will kill you.

Pierce blanches when he sees you. You wonder what he expected. You still had the dress from the premiere on, although you had cut the skirt to show your knees. You had found boots in your new apartment, and though they were too big for you that was the least of your worries. You hadn’t washed in a week and your fancy hairdo was mainly staying up because of the grease in your hair.

He grabs your arm and lets go instantly, like he was burned. You wonder how all that blood got on his hand.

“What the fuck did you do?” he asks and it’s painful to hear.

You fade out and let him lead you away.

When you tune back into reality again Pierce is yelling at you. You’re not sure what he’s saying. But you look out the window and you’re not at home.

“I don’t want to be here,” you say.

And Pierce is giving you that look, the one that says you’re fragile and weak. You hate that look. You raise your hand and try to wipe it off his stupid face but all it does is annoy him. He yells again.

“I want to go home,” you tell him. He points to the tower and you shake your head.

You think he’s asking you questions but you can’t pay attention long enough to decipher the meaning. But now he’s getting upset. It takes all your will and concentration to zero in on what he’s saying.

“- where you want to go or I will take you to a hospital. Do you even know what you took? How do you-”

“Shaundi’s ex,” you say in a big sigh. It feels like a victory. “I bought the place.”

Pierce stops and sighs and starts driving again. You let go of the focus and sink back down.

When you start paying attention again you’re at home in bed.

\---

It takes you three days to sleep off whatever you were on. You wake up sometimes to find food on the desk or water by the bed.

You’re not sure if you eat it but it comes and goes.

And then you wake up and you’re painfully aware of everything around you – the dirt on your skin, the throb in your arms, the ache in your chest. It’s too much. You try to push your face into your pillow and try to fall asleep again but your own stink keeps you awake.

You sigh and go for a shower. It takes you an age to get all the knots out of your hair, to get the grime off your skin. There’s blood under your nails and you’re not sure where it came from. There are gashes in your arms and you don’t remember why ( _you have a feeling why_ ) but they sting under the hot water.

When you come out there is someone standing in your apartment.

Well. Sitting. On the couch. But still, you don’t remember inviting them.

“Get out,” you say.

You don’t wait for a response. Instead you continue to the bedroom where the stink is honestly overwhelming. Is this all just from you or did you throw up somewhere?

Are you planning to be around long enough to find out?

\---

Kinzie was not a happy camper.

The Boss was supposed to be some kind of invincible. She was supposed to be fearless and indestructible.

She was supposed to be in charge and not let what was happening now happen.

Pierce and Shaundi had the same fight every time they swapped shifts now. The same fight of sending the Boss to a hospital, or calling a shrink, or just doubling down and forgetting the past two weeks happened.

And now the Boss is awake and moving around and they still never came up with a solution. Kinzie was personally all for hypnotising the Boss into forgetting Johnny Gat ever existed. Pierce said that idea was stupid and unethical, and Shaundi said it was just stupid.

They still stripped down the bathroom though. Took out all of the pills, took the cabinet door with the mirror off its hinges, dug out her razors and her scissors and the knife she had taped to the back of the toilet.

The kitchen underwent a similar makeover. The only knives left in the drawers were plastic, although Kinzie was pretty sure she had seen the Boss kill someone with a plastic spork once. No drugs, no glasses, no booze.

Pierce had ventured into the Boss’s room and came out clutching a dozen guns and so much ammo it was comical. Another trip resulted in five knives of varying sizes and a bazooka “she hid really well!”.

Kinzie was not sure what this was meant to accomplish. If the Boss wanted to kill herself she’d be dead by now. If she wanted to kill anyone else, then things would be back to normal.

\---

There is no food in your room and you are starving. You last six hours before you venture back out to the kitchen, dressed in sweats and long sleeves. There’s food in the fridge that you didn’t put there, food that’s relatively fresh. You opt for a peanut butter sandwich, start banging around the kitchen.

You run into a problem when you get to the cutlery drawer. There’s nothing you could spread peanut butter with in there. There’s one pathetic looking plastic knife but you don’t like plastic cutlery after what happened last time.

It’s annoying, but not as annoying as the presence on the couch that you refuse to interact with. Who even is that? _Kinzie_?

Things are worse than you thought. It doesn’t matter, you think as you smash a bottle into being sharp and pointy. There’s not a Saint alive who can stop you doing something you want to do.

_And you must be sober now because you remember Johnny again, remember that he’s dead and he’s never coming back and you could join him it wouldn’t be hard to finish the job_

You pick up a couch cushion and stab into it, slit it down the middle. Kinzie barely reacts. She’s on her computer and you're pretty sure that you would need to stab _her_ before she responded meaningfully.

You pull a bowie knife from the wreckage of the couch cushion and finish making your sandwich.

\---

What the fuck even _was that._

Kinzie tried not to flinch when the Boss started smashing things and attacking the furniture. She pulled out a _huge fucking knife_. She had this apartment for two weeks! She was missing for most of it! When did she find the time to turn it into an armoury?

And then the Boss sat down next to her on the ruined cushion with a sandwich in one hand and a _huge fucking knife_ covered in peanut butter in the other. She stabbed the knife into the table, deep enough for it to stand up by itself.

She turned on the tv that got channels and flicked through them absentmindedly, chewing on her sandwich while she decided. She finished the sandwich before settling on something, apparently cartoons. At which point she dug the knife back out of the table and disgustingly, perversely, started to _lick_ the thing clean.

Kinzie could not control her expressions at this point.

The Boss must have noticed, must have taken some kind of joy out of seeing Kinzie’s discomfort, because she said “what” even as continued to lap at the blade.

“That was just in the table,” Kinzie said.

“Yeah? And?”

The Boss did not let up in her determination to strip the knife of peanut butter. Just as Kinzie thought she was finished, that there was no more peanut butter to lick, she turned it around and started on the other side.

Kinzie wrinkled her nose. “It was the couch before that! For who knows how long!”

“So?”

“So it’s disgusting! You did not wash it once before you started licking it!”

The Boss gave her a scornful look.

“What are you doing there?” she asked, changing the subject away from her _huge fucking knife._

“I’m trying to find Cyrus Temple. You know he was exiled from the US?”

And that, for some reason, piqued the Boss’ interest.

“No,” she said and leaned over to peer at Kinzie’s computer.

There were multiple windows, one with a map of some mountains in the middle east, one the code for an AI that would look for Temple so Kinzie wouldn’t have to anymore, and one with lines of fake code that wrote itself so she could type nonsense and the Boss would leave her alone. The Boss liked to think she was technologically savvy, and she knew talking to Kinzie about it would break that illusion.

“I kind of forgot he was alive,” the Boss admitted. “I got busy.”

“He’s about to be a problem again,” Kinzie said. “Look.” She opened another window, quickly found a series of documents. “He’s been selling STAG gear to terrorists in the Middle East.”

The Boss looked lost. “Is that what that says?”

“Yes,” Kinzie said. Maybe the documents _were_ in Arabic but still.

“Is he physically in the Middle East?”

“It’s hard to know. I think the answer right now is… sometimes? MI6 knows more than me. But I've only been working on it for a couple of hours.”

The Boss stood up, started pacing between the kitchen and the couch.

“Let’s find him,” she said, rounding on Kinzie. “Let’s kill him. Can you call MI6?”

Kinzie could do nothing but nod.

\---

You’re on the plane to England to pick up some MI6 agent and for the first time in months you feel alive again. Your body hums with the anticipation of violence, with the readiness for it.

You have your lieutenants at your side, Kinzie on comms, and the fun new experience of government backing. You’re going to kill a guy who has tried to kill you and yours, and besmirched the kind-of-good name of the Saints.

You wouldn’t say you’re happy. Not now, not after everything that’s happened.

But you have a job in front of you. You can move, one foot in front of the other, to walk into the maw of death again and see what you can drag out of it. You’re marching into battle again.

You wouldn’t say you’re happy, but you’re more content than you have been in a very long time.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello so there is some minor, quite vague description of self harm (blood/pain after the fact) and some suicidal thoughts


End file.
